


out of time

by allp_wips



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-01
Updated: 2018-05-01
Packaged: 2020-07-25 17:18:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20029468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allp_wips/pseuds/allp_wips
Summary: Astra is under growing suspicion that something very wrong is going on with Krypton. The increasingly unstable climate seems to be all but ignored by the high council. As she seeks answers to her growing questions, Astra finds herself waylaid by a young scientist, Alex, who seems to know more about the future of Krypton than she lets on, and who also seems to think that Astra is the key to changing that future.





	out of time

Astra is making her way through the books in the archives of the old library, when it happens.

No one bothers to come down here anymore, not when the books they need for their everyday lives had been digitized centuries ago. Down here in the depths of the archives, the books Astra pulls are out are solid ones of actual paper. They’re dusty, and some even fall apart in her hand, as she flips through them. Astra would care more about that, if she were in less of a hurry.

She glances down at the list scribbled on her arm - she hadn’t dared to trust such a list to digital record - and then back up at the shelves. A pensive figure trails past several spines of books on various meteorological phenomenon, before Astra finally plucks one out. She adds it to the pile on her table, dislodging a new cloud of dust when she puts the book down. At that point, the ladder she’s standing on gives an ominous creek, so Astra relents and presses the button to descend, deciding that she has found herself enough books to busy herself with for a while.

The ladder deposits her neatly at the foot of her table, and Astra settles down to read, blowing once in a while on the dusty books, to get them clear enough to see the text. No one bothers her. Only the rare academic ventures this far into the archives, Astra knows, to where the oldest of the reference books are kept, those that were not deemed relevant enough to be archived when Kryptonian libraries went fully digital. She’s willing to wager that these tomes are not even part of the global cataloguing system, left to languish here for sentimental value instead of any practical reason.

When Astra opens the first book, a familiar feeling washes over her. It’s the same feeling she’d encountered when she had first stepped on foreign soil during a deployment, or that one time when they had been waylaid by a Daxamite ship on their way back from a mission. It’s the feeling of preparing for war. Which is ridiculous. Why should she feel that way over this? She’s doing nothing illegal. Checking an old textbook for older calculations is hardly breaking the law. Astra firmly shakes off the feeling of nerves, and sets to work.

As she flips her way through the book, Astra cursorily studies each heading title, before slowing down to get an idea of what she’s looking for. The book lays out the foundational equations used to set up the predictive meteorological algorithms of Krypton. They are not Astra’s area of study - she leans heavily towards curvature-inclusive navigational mathematics - but Astra knows that she can at least narrow down the area that she needs information on, teach it to herself, or rope an expert in the area into her research. One way or another, she plans to find answers.

Answers. Except, Astra doesn’t even know what the question is. She just knows that strange things have been happening recently, and the platitudes of the High Council have been less and less convincing. It was a rare error in the prediction code, Astra had heard on the news cycles last week about the latest anomaly. An expert from the Science Guild itself had been on the news, to confirm that hurricanes were notoriously unpredictable, and even Krypton’s high advanced algorithms could not have predicted the intensity of the one that ripped through Xan City. 

Astra would buy it, if it isn’t also for the unseasonally long drought in the north of Erkol, or the snowfall that has kept Argo City under its wraps for the better part of an ahmzet. Argo City, that is so close to the tropics that-

“There you are!”

Astra looks up, her train of thought interrupted. There’s a faint light, and the silhouette of a figure holding said light, sending up clouds of dust flaring up before it, as the speaker makes their way to her.

It would be impolite to ignore them entirely, of course, so Astra tamps down her annoyance at being disturbed, and gives a slight nod. The beginning of a greeting dies on her tongue, when the new arrival stamps to a stop in front of her table, and begins speaking abruptly.

“You mean you weren’t even in the library proper? I had a hard enough time navigating here without being made, and then you were huddled all the way down here?”

Astra raises her eyebrows at the utter nonsense being uttered at her. Has this woman mistaken her for someone else?

“You were expecting to meet someone here?” she asks, somewhat coldly, as her annoyance mounts further. “I believe you have the wrong person.”

“No, I don’t think so,” comes the decisive answer, as Astra’s unwelcome companion draws out a chair beside her.

She sends an inquisitive glance down at the book that Astra had been reading, before her gaze travels back to Astra’s face. Her glance lingers for a second on something to the left of Astra’s face, and Astra instinctively checks to her side, to find nothing there, before realizing that it’s her hair the stranger had been studying.

“No, it’s definitely you I’m looking for,” the woman says, dragging her gaze back to Astra’s face again. “You’re Astra In-Ze, joint combat and navigational specialization, of the 3rd Border Fleet of the Kryptonian space navy, am I right?”

She sounds like she’s rattling the words off of Astra’s employment record, and it makes Astra smile thinly. 

“Did my mother tell you that?” she asks. “Did she give you my astrological sign and birth chart, while she was at it?”

The question, though sarcastic, gives her pause.  _ Is _ this another one of her mother’s matchmaking schemes? Astra had thought her mother had finally accepted her unexpected choice of Non-Ur for the match, after several arguments, but this strange woman being a suitor would certainly explain why she has come barging in here without so much as an explanation, when Astra rarely socializes outside of her fleetmates. It’s a rude way of making an acquaintance, suitor or not, to do so without arranging a proper meeting beforehand, but Astra suddenly feels a thrill at the idea of this beautiful woman behaving in such an unorthodox way.

The question brings her visitor up short.

“What?” she asks, the confusion in her voice telling Astra that her best guess had been wrong.

That only intensifies Astra’s curiosity, even as an undefinable feeling of disappointment shoots down her earlier thrill.

“So, no,” she surmises. “Who are you, then?”

“Alex,” comes the response. “Alex... Vers.”

“Al-Ex Vers,” Astra repeats, frowning. The name isn’t familiar. “And you were looking for me because?”

She trails off, raising her eyebrows at Alex.

“Well, to begin with, because I know why you’re here,” Alex says, gesturing at the books scattered around Astra.

It’s the way she says it, calm and entirely sure of her words, that makes Astra feel a chill that her face doesn’t betray. She feels guilty, although she’s done nothing wrong. She had only dismissively studied Alex until then, but now she takes a closer look and realizes that the woman sports a military demeanor, even if Astra has never heard of her name along the Fleet. Perhaps a private soldier, then, working for one of Krypton’s great houses, or one of the few inducted into Krypton’s land-bound army. Still, soldier or not, Astra can’t be convicted for treason just for opening a few old books.

“You seem to think you know a lot of things about me,” she says.

“These are meteorological books,” Alex says, sweeping a hand over the clutter on the table. 

“And if they are?” Astra shoots back, feeling even more on edge. “It’s not a crime to read.”

“Who said there was a crime?” Alex asks, raising her eyebrows.

Astra stares at her, and she seems to take that as permission to come closer.

“The reason you’re going through these books is because of the weather anomalies that have been popping up all over Krypton in the past few years,” she says. “The usual predictive algorithms haven’t been working, have they, despite what the High Council says? Until now, machines have been doing work, and they’ve been on the dot every time. Am I right?”

Astra remains quiet, knowing that the severe look on her face doesn’t betray the shock she feels inside. Alex looks equally severe, as she takes a seat beside Astra, and brings the book that she had been reading towards herself, still open to a set of equations. Alex studies those, and then glances at the notes Astra had scribbled on the side of them.

“I don’t understand these,” she admits, after a few moments, pushing it back towards Astra. “This isn’t my area of study.”

“Who are you?” Astra repeats, frowning.

“Someone who’s as concerned about what’s happening to Krypton as you,” Alex says. “It’s going wrong. “Weather predictions, navigational algorithms, seismic readings... they’re all showing unprecedented anomalies, even if the Council pretends otherwise.”

“ _ If _ there’s anything to pretend about,” Astra says, “Have you considered that they might have good reasons for keeping it under wraps?”

She doesn’t know why she bothers with such a weak protest. Rao knows she’s complained enough about the fossils on the Council, to Alura and Non and sometimes even to Councillors’ own faces. But, this seems different; something tells Astra that this issue she’s wading into is the tip of an iceberg, and that it may be too momentous a problem to be making hasty judgments on.

“They’re sitting on their asses and doing nothing,” Alex shoots back.

Astra feels her fingers tighten, so that a page rips. She takes her hand away from the book and turns away from Alex, lips pursed tight. She might be less angry, if Alex isn’t echoing the very thoughts that have been running through her own mind in the past few months.

Unseeingly, her eyes find the equations in the book in front of her. Calculations that have worked for centuries, based on foundational constants that should be unchangeable.

“They’re not working anymore,” she murmurs. “But, I don’t understand why.”

“You’d need to get an expert on that,” Alex says. “At a guess, I’d say it’s because Krypton has changed severely in the past decades. Between a runaway greenhouse effect and overmining of your core, it’s no wonder everything is going haywire.”

“You’d need proof before making such an assertion,” Astra says. Rao, her eyes are drooping; she doesn’t know how long she’s been in here, poring over these books. She continues sleepily. “You’d need someone with the proper expertise to write a formal report for the Council to hold a hearing on.”

Her eyes fly open again, as a thought suddenly comes to her.

“Non,” she murmurs. “He’s friends with some members of the meteorological branch of the Science Guild. He might know someone whose help we can conscript.”

Her thoughts come up short, at having said “we” instead of “I” so naturally, but Alex is frowning long before she gets to that part.

“Non?” she asks, an edge entering her voice.

“Yes, he’ll know who to point us towards,” Astra says, “You said yourself that I’d need to consult an expert, someone whose opinion the Council will listen to.”

Alex looks oddly surprised, before a wondering new awareness comes into her gaze. She studies Astra as if with new eyes.

“Is that really what you would do at first?” she asks. 

“What?” Astra snaps.

Alex seems to shake herself out of whatever had come over her. “How long will getting the expert opinion take?”

“I can hardly predict that without finding someone to do the work first,” Astra says, growing more puzzled, and consequently more annoyed, by the minute. “That is my concern, not yours.”

“It’s my concern, too, because I’m trying to help you.” Alex says. “For an issue of this magnitude, you’re going to need all the help you can get.”

“Who are you?” Astra asks again, mystified.

“Someone who has as big a stake in Krypton’s survival as you.” Alex says simply.

“Survival?” Astra is amused. “These are a few predictive algorithms going wrong. It’s not the end of the world.”

Alex’s lip merely twitches.

  
  


\---


End file.
